Flashback (6 page)

“So did you know Carrington well?” asked Max.

“Not really,” she replied. “Back then, I was very interested in finding out more about David’s disappearance and never gave up hope that they’d find him alive. I heard that Carrington had been working with the police on missing person cases and arranged to meet him. I just figured he might be able to help, even if only to put my mind at ease.”

“And did he?”

“Well,” Mrs. Dexter said slowly, “he certainly had some interesting theories, that’s for sure.”

“About Kovac and his projects?” pressed Max. “And your husband was involved in that too, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied, as she drained her cup.

“I mean he oversaw a lot of projects,” Max explained. “Probably worked with Kovac, at least some of the time?”

“I think you’re a little off track, Max,” said Mrs. Dexter. “I never said my husband had anything to do with all this. And which school did you say you were doing

this project for?”

“How about some more punch?” Max asked her.

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Mrs. Dexter, with a broad smile.

There was quite a line now for the punch bowl. While he waited, Max occasionally glanced over at Mrs. Dexter’s table. People briefly stopped by and chatted with her for a moment of two, although no one ever sat down at her table.

Most of the event’s guests appeared to be ordinary families visiting relatives, but Max couldn’t help noticing one man in a dark suit. Everyone else at the event was casually dressed.

Max finally got his turn at the bowl and filled the cup. When Max looked over to where Mrs. Dexter was sitting, the man in the dark suit was standing beside her. Mrs. Dexter looked to be very agitated. The man reached into his pocket, pulling out a small object. Max dropped the drink and raced over to the table, barging into several people in the process. Amid angry shouts and protests, he saw the man plunge something into Mrs. Dexter’s arm, before quickly walking away.

Max was still only halfway to the picnic table when he saw Mrs. Dexter fall from her chair. By the time Max arrived, the man in the suit was long gone. Mrs. Dexter was surrounded by nursing staff and concerned guests.

“Oh my god, is she okay?”

“I don’t know, she’s always been a picture of health.”

“Stand back please,” said a nurse, as she started performing CPR on Mrs. Dexter.

“What happened?”

“One minute she was okay and the next she started to choke,” said a young woman, tears streaming down her face.

“Is she going to be okay?”

“No,” said the nurse, “I’m afraid not.”

“Oh, my god,” said Max, under his breath.

“Hey, wait a minute,” said a voice behind him.

It was the receptionist.

“Those police officers want to talk to you.”

Max turned and ran, avoiding the grasping hands of onlookers as he sprinted to the gate. He burst out onto the sidewalk but didn’t get far. A police car was parked directly in his path. Two officers were standing next to the vehicle and one of them raised his hand for Max to stop.

“Are you Max Garrison?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Max, with some hesitation, wondering how the officer knew his name.

“Can you come with us to the station please?” the officer said.

He opened the rear door of the police car and invited Max to get in.

“What for?” said Max.

“Some people need to ask you some questions, that’s all,” said the other officer, as he walked around to the driver’s side door.

Max seriously contemplated making a run for it, but knew that would only mean more trouble. He got into the back of the car and heard an ominous click as the doors locked, sealing him in. The officer who had first spoken to him climbed into the passenger seat and spoke into the radio as the car pulled away.

“Tell Mr. Connor we have Max Garrison and we’re bringing him in. We’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

“Okay,” a voice from the radio replied, “I’ll let Mr. Connor know.”

The men didn’t talk with Max on the journey to the police station, during which time Max’s mind raced. He knew he’d done nothing wrong. Nevertheless, he was well aware how John Carrington had intimated that people who unintentionally got mixed up in this whole business usually disappeared. Max felt as if he was going to throw up, but struggled to keep it together. Carrington was now dead. Mrs. Dexter had seemed in very good health, but was now dead too. Max couldn’t help thinking that he might be next. If they killed David and covered it up, despite his father’s role in the government, what chance did Max have?

When they arrived at the police station, the officers ushered Max inside. He was asked to empty his pockets and leave any personal belongings, including his school ID, wallet, and cell phone, with the officer in charge, who also took a note of Max’s home phone number.

“Through here please,” said the man who’d driven the car.

He gestured for Max to enter a small room, just down the hallway past the front desk.

“Have a seat,” he instructed. “Mr. Connor will be right with you.”

MAX SAT DOWN
at the bare table, which had another chair at the opposite side. The room was cold and uninviting and only had one door, beside which was a solitary phone on the wall. Another wall featured a large mirror. Max had seen enough TV and movies to know that someone was likely to be sitting on the other side, watching him right now. They’d doubtless continue to do so throughout his impending interview, looking for any discrepancies in his answers. He could see the mirror out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t dare look over at it. Max simply stared straight ahead at the door as he nervously awaited the arrival of Mr. Connor. He felt an odd pressure at the back of his head but put it down to the stress of the situation.

A couple of minutes later, the door opened and two men dressed in dark suits entered the room. One was tall and willowy with thinning, pale blonde hair, the other was shorter and more heavily built, dark haired with a gray peppered goatee. They looked vaguely familiar, but Max couldn’t quite place them.

“Max, I’m Mr. Connor and this is my associate, Mr. Drake,” said the blonde man, pulling out a chair on the opposite side of the table and sitting down. “Would you like something to drink?”

Drake remained standing beside the door as Connor handed Max a plastic bottle of water. Max contemplated asking Connor how they knew his name, but thought better of it. Somehow the uniformed police officers had known to watch for him at Belvedere Mansions. They might even be aware of his chat with Carrington. Why else would they have pulled him in?

Max felt the pain in his head again. He took the bottle, but as he opened the water and took a sip, Max realized with alarm where he’d seen these two men before. They’d both been in the photographs that he’d found in Carrington’s mailbox. They were also at the coffee shop just after he’d first met Carrington. And although he hadn’t seen his face that clearly, Max was convinced that Drake had been responsible for Mrs. Dexter’s death.

“So Max,” Connor continued, with a warm smile, “we’ve done a little checking up on you. Just routine, you understand, but can you tell us exactly what were you doing at Belvedere Mansions?”

“It’s a school project.”

“A school project?” Drake repeated, as he began slowly pacing the room.

“Yeah,” Max explained. “We had to choose an old person to visit.”

“Really?” said Drake, sounding unconvinced as he paused only a few feet away from Max’s chair. “I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“Oh, you know,” Max told him, “these days, the teachers like to get teenagers involved with the community and doing things with old people. Seems like a good idea, I guess.”

Max knew they couldn’t easily verify his story with the school, not during summer vacation. Hopefully that would buy him some time.

“I guess we’ll have to contact the school board,” said Drake, with a smirk. “You’d better hope your story checks out.”

“Exactly what do you know about Mrs. Dexter?” Connor asked.

“Who’s Mrs. Dexter?” Max replied.

The two men looked at each other briefly, then turned back to focus on Max.

“The old woman you were talking to,” Connor continued, as Drake began slowly pacing the room again.

“Oh, okay,” said Max. “I never asked her name. I just went there and tried talking to her, just to get my marks for the project. I figured I could get her name later from the nurses to tell my teacher, just to prove I’d been there. She looked lonely and all the other people had visitors. I felt kind of sorry for her.”

Max was keenly aware that he was rambling. He hoped that they thought he was just nervous, rather than making it all up as he went along. Yet, each time he answered, Max felt the pressure at the back of his head, like the headache he’d had at the cemetery. There were no images though, so he thought it was the increasingly stressful interview causing the pain.

“So you have no idea who Mrs. Dexter was?” asked Connor.

“No, not a clue,” said Max. “Why?”

“Never mind,” Drake snapped, this time standing only inches from where Max was sitting. “How do you know John Carrington?”

“Who?” said Max.

“Don’t play games with us, kid,” said Drake, sternly. “We know you met Carrington the other day at the park.”

“Oh, the old guy?” said Max. “I never even asked him his name either. He just seemed to want to chat, that’s all.”

“What did he want to chat about?” Connor asked.

“Nothing much,” Max lied again. “He talked about the park and how it had changed since he was a boy. Then he talked about how much he missed his wife, who’d died recently. It was a bit creepy, to be honest, so I made an excuse and got away as quick as I could.”

“You sure that’s all you talked about?” Drake demanded.

“Yeah,” said Max. “What is he, some kind of criminal?”

“No, nothing like that,” Connor assured him.

“So what’s this about?” asked Max, innocently. “Am I under arrest or something?”

“No,” said Connor, shaking his head, “but we do need to ask you some more questions.”

He was about to speak again when the wall phone rang. Drake went over to pick it up.

“This is Drake,” he said. “Yeah. That’s right. Really? But we just need a few more minutes. I wasn’t aware that . . . Okay, if you’re sure.”

Drake cast a nervous glance first at the mirror, then over at Connor, who appeared equally uneasy. Less than a minute after Drake hung up the phone, the door opened and in walked a tall slim man, with shoulder-length blonde hair. It was the other man that Max had seen in Carrington’s photographs. Max also recognized him from the collision he’d had outside the coffee shop.

“I’ll take it from here, Drake,” the man announced.

“But,” Drake began, “we should stay and . . .”

“I said,” the man snapped, “I’ll take it from here.”

He glared at Drake, who looked to be in some visible discomfort. He and Connor hurriedly left the room, closing the door behind them. The man with the blonde hair then sat down at the table in the chair opposite Max.

“So Max,” said the man, who Max immediately noticed had very piercing pale blue eyes. “It is Max, isn’t it?”

Max simply nodded. He assumed the man was a police officer, although he was very casually dressed in a plain white tee shirt and blue jeans. Max felt very uneasy about this new arrival who was studying him very intensely.

“Don’t worry too much about those guys, Max,” the man reassured him, with a warm smile. “They’re just doing their job and neither of them has kids, so they’re not that up on school projects. My name’s Kane, by the way.”

He extended his hand across the table and Max shook it, offering a weak smile.

“Did you know Mrs. Dexter was a very important woman?” said Kane.

“No, I didn’t,” Max answered.

“Her husband used to be an prominent politician,” Kane continued. “That’s why those guys are looking into why she died so suddenly, checking out who she saw or talked to recently. You know the drill.”

Max nodded.

“Then there was that private detective you talked to.”

“What private detective?” asked Max.

“Carrington, at the park. Oh, you don’t know?”

“He never told me he was a detective,” said Max. “I thought he was just some crazy old man, like I told those other guys.”

“And now he’s dead,” said Kane, matter-of-factly.

“What?” exclaimed Max, with mock surprise.

“Dead,” Kane repeated. “They found him in the park. The police are still investigating, but it looks like a clear case of death by natural causes. Poor old guy just had a heart attack, they think. But whenever this kind of thing happens, they always look into recent events and you were seen with him in the park. This is just standard procedure.”